the heartbeat of the whole brigade and its feelings were put into words, which echoed across the whole region of the south.

On 10 July the bulletin published a portrait of the fighters of Beit Daras. On 11 July it described the Negba fighters and our motorized company. And on 14 July the bulletin invented a new name: "Samson’s Foxes. "10

For four days and three nights Negba and Ibdis stood firm. For four days and three nights the Givati Brigade, four pitiful, undermanned battalions and a reserve battalion of foreign volunteers, withstood the concentrated power of the most modern Arab army. Resisted, and did not give way.

On the fourth day of the battle, 12 July 1948, an Egyptian unit man-aged to sneak out of the police fortress of Iraq Suweidan and occupy Hill 105. This position controlled the road to Negba. For the first time Kibbutz Negba was completely cut off. The decisive moment had arrived, the desperate fight, man against man, to determine the out-come of the war.

13 July 1948

A trench near Sawafir

Hill 105

In the last five days we have not washed, we haven’t slept more than two or three hours at a stretch, and eating we have only done on occa-sion and in a terrible hurry. We are tired enough to drop. The tension of combat is the only thing that rescues us for a few hours from our total mental exhaustion.

Shortly before midnight the jeeps are readied. There was bad news during the day. Negba managed to fight off a heavy attack which lasted for ten hours. Ibdis too, the position overlooking the Kibbutz, came under continuous attack. The whole day long we heard the noise of battle, the artillery and the shells.

We lay next to the jeeps and tried to get a bit of sleep. The roaring of the heavy guns, theirs and ours, did not disturb us. We have got used to it, just as one can get used to the waves of the sea.

* * *

"Jeep teams - in the vehicles!"

We put on our helmets, try to find a half-way comfortable

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